1. Technical Field
The present invention relates, in general, to Electronic Medical Record (EMR) systems, and, more particularly, to a system and method for supporting information interoperability between medical instruments which is capable of automatically combining medical test information measured by a plurality of medical instruments for performing data communication in compliance with various data interface protocols with the medical information of an EMR system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Due to the development of information and communication technology, computer-based patient recording has become popularized in the medical field. Medical information includes not only personal text information, such as family clinical history records, past clinical history records and metal disease records, but also image information, such as X-rays. This type of medical information is being freely moved between internal and external computers and between medical institutions over communication networks.
Representative systems for processing and managing such medical information include EMR systems and Picture Archiving and Communication Systems (PACSs). An EMR system is a system which is capable of putting medical examination and treatment records such as hospital admission records, first ambulatory examination records, second ambulatory examination records, problem lists, development records, surgery/anesthesia records, hospital discharge summaries, consultative medical examination and treatment records and special treatment records, nursing records such as prescription and performance records, nursing histories, clinical observation records, special measurement records, nursing procedures, discharge nursing records, surgery nursing records and recovery nursing records, patients' affairs department records such as patient basic information and patient reception information, medical examination and treatment support records such as patient test results, and prescription records such as medicine/injection prescription, test prescription and treatment/surgery prescription records, into an integrated database and then managing all information of patients without requiring charts in an integrated manner. Accordingly, the EMR system provides advantages in that the chart management cost, the manpower cost and various types of costs for printing can be reduced because medical, nursing, patients' affairs department, prescription and patient test result data, etc. which were manually recorded in charts in relevant periods are computerized and managed without using charts, and in that medical accidents can be prevented, the efficiency of medical examination and treatment can be improved and redundant work can be reduced, and business and management based on various types of statistics can be efficiently performed because interoperability is automatically applied to various types of information about patients.
A PACS is an image storage and transmission system, and is a system which stores and manages captured medical images in the form of digital data without requiring films required by conventional analog medical imaging instruments such as X-ray machines and Computed Tomography (CT) machines. A PACS provides the advantage of avoiding expenses required for the management and purchase of films because films are not required, and the advantage of improving the efficiency of medical examination and treatment because captured medical images can be viewed and diagnoses can be made from anywhere.
However, a conventional EMR system computerizes only text-based information manually recorded by doctors, nurses, patients' affairs department staffs, etc., but has the problem of not supporting interoperability between the pieces of test information measured by a plurality of medical instruments having various data interface standards. That is, since a plurality of medical instruments have different data interface standards, they cannot operate in conjunction with an EMR system.
Furthermore, in order to manage test information measured by medical instruments using the EMR system, a problem arises in that the test information manually measured must be digitized, so that time and man power are required, and this required man power results in high expenses.
In order to solve the problem, respective medical instruments require gateway devices for digitizing measured test information, as shown in FIG. 1.
FIG. 1 is a drawing showing the configuration of a medical measurement data interoperability EMR system equipped with gateway devices connected to medical instruments in a one-to-one correspondence.
Referring to FIG. 1, the typical medical measurement data interoperability EMR system includes gateway devices 40 connected to a plurality of medical instruments 10 having various data interface standards via data interface units 21 corresponding to the medical instruments 10, and configured to convert a received measured signal into the data format required by an EMR system 40 and send it over a local network 45, a database 35 configured to store EMR information, and a hospital server 30 configured to record the resulting measured information, from the medical instruments 10, in the database 35 in association with the EMR information. The measured signal may be an analog image signal or text-based serial or parallel data according to each type of medical instrument 10.
As described above, the typical medical measurement data interoperability EMR system has the problem that, in order to support interoperability with the information of a typical EMR system 40, the respective medical instruments 10 are provided with interface units 21 based on corresponding data interface standards and furthermore gateway devices 20 are required for realizing conformity to the data format required by the EMR system 40, so that the setup cost of the system is high.
Furthermore, the conventional medical measurement data interoperability EMR system has the problem of PC-based manual work being required when providing measured information interoperability between the medical instruments and the EMR system 40 and when performing maintenance.
Furthermore, the conventional medical measurement data interoperability EMR system has the problem of lacking scalability because each of the gateway devices thereof can be used only for a medical instrument having the same data interface standard.